In the last few years the smart building market has grown exponentially and is estimated to be worth around 100 billion by the year 2025. The amount of active competitors, combined with the required time and effort to launch a new sensor-based product, makes it difficult to enter the market and slows innovation. WeAreReasonablePeople (WARP), a Rotterdam-based digital design agency, is trying to broaden its impact by starting a venture under the name SensorBloxx. This venture is building a universally implementable base to simplify the launch of new sensor-based products. WARP will design the first ‘flagship’ product build on SensorBloxx to test this universally implementable base and start encouraging other companies.

In order to catch the attention of fellow innovators the product needs to stand out from the competition. A projection of the metaphorical competitive analysis on the Dutch market provides a better understanding of which businesses should be targeted to increase the flagship’s viability. Although it initially seemed that the viable audiences were already being targeted, a change of perspective has shown the potential of small-sized businesses in five sectors based in office environments.

Various rounds of qualitative research with stakeholders in the targeted audience indicate the flagship’s ability to treat these sectors identically. Desk research brings to light potential motives for business owners to start generating indoor environment data. However, business owners are explicitly devoted to use the data to optimise the work experience of their employees.

A concept is created based on the findings of the explorative qualitative research. This concept is presented to existing and new participants within the target audience. These concept validation sessions provided a better understanding of how the flagship should optimise the employees’ work experience. The results of the concept evaluation sparked an iterative digital prototyping process that led to a new concept embodiment. This concept embodiment and its functioning have been once more validated to confirm the flagship’s desirability.

A final design arose, a flagship called ‘DROP’, a non-intrusive sensor-based product that optimises work experience. This flagship involves employees in realising an optimal work environment together. DROP combines a non-intrusive calm display and a supportive mobile interface for employees. DROP can function as a flagship since it genuinely fulfils the needs of a target audience that competitors are barely targeting in the smart building market.